


Frostbite

by NihilisticBat



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Aster is smitten, Jack gets hurt, M/M, but also so far out of the loop he's hardly on the same track, extreme misuse of italics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:10:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 11,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4911910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NihilisticBat/pseuds/NihilisticBat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has had a harder time of it than he's let on to the other Guardians and his trust issues might finally be the thing that kills him. Can he figure out how to let others help him before he can no longer be helped?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lying is the Least Fun Jack has Without Taking His Clothes Off

\----Jack----  
Jack Frost let out a whoop of giddy excitement as he flung himself in the air to do a subdued, for him, corkscrew through the air. His laughter echoed off the seemingly barren snow-covered landscape, much to the varying degrees of amusement of his fellow guardians. Tooth seemed more relieved than anything, only sparing Jack’s antics a wan smile and North seemed the closest to sharing Jack’s jubilance. The Sandman seemed torn between encouraging Jack to do even more intricate areal tricks while simultaneously trying to comfort one Tooth Fairy. Bunnymund was the quickest to school his features of the smile directed at Jack and attempting to get back to business as usual, in typical Bunny un-fun style Jack noted, as he called up at the flying boy.

“Didn’t think you’d be so jolly after such a bloody row!”

Jack’s excitement immediately cooled at the words, leaving him hovering in the air as he tried to dial back and repurpose his nervous energy. It just wouldn’t do to have that part of him slip out to his only friends and he resolved, again, to keep a tighter hold on the violent tendencies his peace-loving friends undoubtedly would find off-putting.  
His stunned pause went unnoticed by the two more colorful guardians and a distracted Sandy, but was met with confusion by the keen eyed rabbit who’d meant it as a (mostly) friendly jab. With a now forced smile Jack quickly shot lower, now hovering only inches from the surprised rabbit. His plan apparently working as the cowed Bunnymund forgot his confusion in the forced closeness with Jack.

“Awww come on Cottontail, can’t a guy appreciate how smooth this all went? I mean, those Wendigo didn’t even get close to the village, none of us were hurt, and the kids didn’t even get a whiff of danger!”

Jack thought he had a fair point, this may not have been his first “official” outing with the rest of the guardians, whose range of responsibility extended far beyond what he’d initially imagined, but it was certainly the one that had gone the smoothest despite the danger involved in fighting cannibalistic wolf monsters. Which, now that Jack thought about it, was hardly surprising considering the utter lack of duplicity in his still newfound companions. In the scant few months since Pitch the rest of the nasties of the spirit world seemed to deem it the perfect time to try and unhinge the still weakened Guardians and pick back up some of their more unsavory habits while they still could. After all, in the last five hundred or so years since the guardians first banded together their sphere of influence over the safety of children gave them some sort of sixth sense when it came to kids in danger. This and the near impossible speeds they each could travel at gave them the appearance of virtual omnipresence to the rest of the spirit world. This shield, more than anything else, is what kept the darker aspects of the spirit off of the modern world and away from the kids. 

So even with how weak each of them still were they were forced to lay the smack down on each and every numerous attack on the children of the world. Which led to an extremely frazzled Tooth Fairy, one Santa Claus reliving his glory days as a Bandit King, and a progressively more and more pissed off Easter Bunny. Sandy was as ever cool as the proverbial cucumber, unfazed by the added workload for reasons Jack could barely grasp at. Jack himself however was going strong. The added boosts to his powerbase from finding his core and the belief power of children gave him more energy than he knew what to do with. With everything he’d had to do to simply stay alive these last three hundred years, terrible-horrible-god-awful-things that he could never ever tell the rest of the guardians because they were so fucking pure and kind and they could never let a murderer around kids. And Jack needed those kids. They were all he had. 

The guardians could see and speak to Jack, but they could never know him. At least they wouldn’t if he had any say about it. The Joy Jack felt in his core resonating in the hearts of the children who were quickly starting to believe in him was more than Jack could ever give up. So he distracted Bunny, frazzled him until he got those cute wrinkles between his ears when they swiveled between annoyed and overwhelmed. The Easter Bunny would be the hardest to fool, but hey, Bunny was the one he was most used to tricking. After all, he’d been doing off and on since ’68. Compared to that crash course in deception, what was a couple more eons?


	2. Ice Skating is a Lot Harder When You're Digitigrade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster doesn't like bullies and he likes cannibals even less, but at least he knows how to deal with them. Now if only the newest member of their rag tag group made half as much sense.

\----Aster----

Aster hated Wendigo. He didn't so much care when people ate meat though he was primarily a herbivore, but he tended to have a problem when that meat also happened to come from _people._  And he happened to know for a fact that most Wendigo viewed children along the same lines humans viewed a choice cut of veal. So when the call came out for the Guardians to deal with a pack of the beasties, he wouldn't bother to pull his punches, and he would show the monsters just how deadly the amalgamation of every pookan fighting style he knew very well could be. Wendigo might be a handful and a half to fight off alone, or even with just two people, but with the full force of the Guardians this promised to be a piece of Aster's favorite carrot cake. 

So as they drew up close to the pack, running full tilt towards a small village somewhere in Russia Aster let loose his 'rangs and bound toward the pack, quickly gaining ground. There was a  _reason_ people don't race rabbits. Right as Aster was nipping at the heels of the slowest of the pack he watched his trusted boomerangs curve back towards him, only to be stopped by the foremost Wendigos' throats. The collision would have absolutely destroyed the necks of any mortal, but spirits were made of tougher stuff and instead of agonizing death the two beasts were simply knocked to the ground. Which also had the happy side effect of tripping a couple of the buggers behind them. With a stunning aerial leap Aster cleared the entire pack and landed a good ten feet ahead of them, barring the path of the now sputtering monsters. 

Aster may have been the fastest of the bunch, on ground at least, but the rest of the Guardians were no slouches either. Tooth was the next to arrive and being of the warrior queen stock, she wasted no time in flanking the left side of the pack while their attention was still on the  _giant fucking rabbit_ that had the gall to attack them head on. While she wreaked havoc with her twin swords, Aster took a moment to really look at who he was facing. There were six..okay, four, Wendigo now that tooth had finished disarming two of them, but the last four would be more difficult now that they could actually fight back. Well, kind of. From the back two golden whips wrapped around the arms of one of Wendigo, who was promptly thrown into the air. Not to be outdone, Aster darted forward, ducking under claws sharp to ribbon flesh without trying and bending in ways a human spine would never allow, landing three punches while dodging the continuous swipe of claws. Pulling slightly back he knew that it wouldn't be enough. Pain wasn't even slowing these guys down. 

A flash of steel and red fuzz explained the whereabouts of the final Wendigo. Pushing forward again, this time simply knocking back its arms, forcing them to overextend and moved in close enough to smell the old blood and fear-sweat of its last victim. Quicker than the eye could follow Aster kicked almost straight up into the bottom of the Wendigo's jaw, jumping back as suddenly as he'd moved forward. Looking around Aser saw that everything was well in hand. Tooth had finished tying up the two baddies she'd taken down, North was holding a sack that wouldn't stop _squirming_  and Sandy was looking delightedly at what appeared to be a steak doing the waltz with a near perfect replica of the sleeping Wendigo made out of his own glowing sand. That only left Jack.  _Jack?!_  A momentary spike of panic shot through the pooka before he whipped around and spotted the winter spirit finishing up some last minute touches to what appeared to be... a giant wall of ice. 

For a brief moment Aster watched Jack lower his arms and smile at his creation. The wall was easily twenty feet high and long enough for any of the guardians to be able to catch up to any Wendigo that could have possibly have made it passed their assault. Not only that, but it was also more solid ice than he'd ever seen Jack make at once. But he hardly even looked winded as he slowly turned around to check on the battle that was now long finished. Aster was impressed, both at the foresight Jack had shown in making a contingency plan in case things hadn't gone as smoothly and the obvious exceptional growth in power compared to even just a month ago. It wasn't until Jack jumped into the air and let out an obnoxious whoop that Aster realized he was staring with a goofy smile on his face.

 _ _Stupid rabbit, what are you smiling about?_   _Thought Aster as he quickly wrangled in his expression to his more usual scowl. As a thought occurred to him Aster grabbed it like a lifeline to keep himself from coming off more like the blithering fool he'd probably seemed like staring at Jack with his stupid grin, so he yelled out, “Didn’t think you’d be so jolly after such a bloody row!” wincing inwardly as he added just a bit too much bite to the words. But really, this was easily their twelfth scrap and yet _again_ jack had somehow found a way to stay out of any actual _fighting_  . 

Except there was no quick retort. Aster looked up and for a fraction of a second he saw panic flash across Jack's normally beaming face. What was that about? There were no more threats, throughout all this the other guardians had composed themselves and were now throwing the mostly limp forms of the Wendigo into a portal North had created from one of his numerous snowglobes. Presumably sending them to the Snow Queen's palace where they sent all other winter based baddies who made the mistake to go toe to toe with the Guardians.  

So it had to be what Aster himself had said. But suddenly he had a faceful of Jack Frost and he was suddenly too busy thanking every pooken ancestor he could think of that his fur almost completely hid any sign of the blush that threatened to turn him completely red from the tips of his ears to the base of his tail to get much further in his wandering thoughts. And then Jack was spouting off about something like just being happy everyone made it out safe and that later maybe Tooth will finally be able to get back on track and really pull herself together, but Aster barely heard any of it because  _Jack's face was right there._

But as quickly as Jack was there he was just as suddenly gone, flying off to who-knows-where with only as much of a goodbye as his shout back to just use the northern lights when they needed him again. Aster shrugged and turned to face North, Tooth and Sandy, somewhat baffled at the swift exit of their own personal winter sprite. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of excess time on my hands, and a lot of feelings for older than dirt Rabbits and cold dead twinks, so I guess I'll just keep writing until something makes me stop. This whole thing is kinda awkward and feels a lot like shouting into the void, but if nothing else I'm quite used to that, so there you go.
> 
> On a side note, I'm pretty much just pushing these out as is. I try and edit as best I can myself, but when my brain knows what's -supposed- to be there it gets really hard for me to see what actually is. So bare with me I guess.


	3. Jack Gets Torn a New One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first time in over a century Jack is caught unaware. He just wishes he could be surprised about the whole deal, but pain is something he's all too familiar with to even try and make a fuss.

\----Jack----

                Looking from a tactician’s perspective, the four older Guardians were a wet dream. Or a nightmare, depending on which side you ended up falling on, Jack pondered on as he wandered around some unlikely forest in northern Siberia only a scant few miles from the earlier confrontation- just enough to be out of sight.

It really shouldn’t be surprising all things considered, what with Jack learning little snippets of the other Guardian’s pasts. After all, Tooth was very fond of reminding anyone who she even perceived as looking down on her that she was first a Warrior Queen (capitol W implied) before the children started looking on her as a kindly fairy. Her most usual method of doing so included a softly glowing saber held to the throat of the offender, faster than anyone could hope to counter. Jack had yet to be on the receiving end of this treatment, and so far it looked like he’d gotten into her good graces. Probably something to do with the undercurrent of fear he quickly developed when she first shoved her hands in his _mouth_ of all places _before he could even put his guard up._ She could have killed him and there would’ve been nothing he could do. Jack suppressed a shiver at the thought, no need for a winter spirit to look cold in his own element. Or _scared_.

                And North! He was… Well he was something. Too big for any room he was in, even the towering walls of his own workshop barely seeming to contain him. Apparently he was a giant of a man even before he gained his quasi-immortality and being raised by _bandits_ of all things certainly didn’t help his already intimidating bearings. His power base existing on the fringes of winter Jack had once thought North could help him live a more normal…life. Death? After-life? But after being literally thrown out of the workshop for the seventy-sixth time Jack gave up on that little fantasy.

                Ghosting along the underbrush, the wind around him making more noise than his feet barely brushing the ground as he trailed patterns of frost across the already freezing landscape. Where he tapped trees with his hand or staff intricate depictions of more warm weathered plants grew in his wake. Black eyes trailed after him in the shadowed trees, and for once Jack didn’t notice. Nothing in his life preoccupied him quite like the other Guardians.

                Sandy was the only real enigma. Easily the most dangerous of the bunch, and effortlessly deadly, but Jack knew next to nothing of the little dream weaver. It’d taken him quite a while to even find out he really existed. There were tangible signs of everyone else but everything he did and was, was made from the dream sand Pitch had corrupted. Each left signs Jack could see in their work; North with his presents, Bunny and his eggs, Tooth had her pocket change, but Sandy left behind only dreams. And there was one problem with that. Jack didn’t sleep. Oh-he could be knocked unconscious, but natural sleep seemed to be beyond him. It was probably the mostly dead thing. It’s _always_ the dead thing. After he regained his memories Jack had quickly realized just how different is existence was even from other spirits.

And lastly, Bunny. Bunny, Bunny, _Bunny, Bunny, **Bunny.**_ Jack’s previously blank expression quickly turned into a scowl, the space between his eyebrows wrinkling so deeply his face would probably get stuck like that if he wasn’t careful. Bunny was a whole different ball game. In spite of every piece of his brain screaming at him to fear Bunny, at least to the same extent his weariness stemmed form for the other Guardians, the rest of him insisted Bunny was a giant muscly floof ball. Jack slowed down to a crawl, his lips thinning into an almost invisible line as he lost himself in his own musings. It was that feeling that made Bunny easily the most dangerous to Jack. Even worse, Jack couldn’t seem to stop antagonizing him. Bunny easily had the shortest fuse of all of the Guardians and was easily as potentially deadly as any of the rest of them, but Jack couldn’t leave well enough alone with the giant rabbit.

Behind the now completely still Jack the watching eyes pulled away from the darkness, stalking forward in an approximation of stealth that would ordinarily tip Jack off faster than someone actively calling his name, he'd let himself completely lose track of his surroundings in a way only one person could truly accomplish.

With a feral grin a wendigo, somewhat larger than the already somewhat absurdly sized monsters they’d fought earlier, thrust its clawed paw at the oblivious winter spirit.  If it weren’t for the wind Jack probably would have died, again, and probably in a more permanent basis, but as it stands the Wind pulled him up just enough for the claws to gouge into his left kidney rather than tearing out his heart.

Jack twisted around, headless of the chunk of his flesh still gripped in the wendigo’s claws, forming scalpel sharp ice all around the crook of his staff as he swung at the beast’s head before it could even lower its arm. _Fucking Bunny._

Jack barely registered the thud of a head hitting the ground, but once he knew the monster was no longer a threat, with a quick scan of the woods around him and that no more were likely to come he let himself feel the pain in his lower back. Oh God that _hurt._ Letting go of his staff with his right hand he reached back to feel out where the tear in his hoodie reviled the _hole in his fucking back._ Bunny wasn’t even _here_ and he was going to kill Jack.

Blood began to bead out of the wound, sluggish and blue. Jack didn’t really bleed so much anymore, you needed a beating heart and blood flow for that. He more just. Oozed. Wincing and gasping for a breath he didn’t really need Jack examined the extent of the damage. The wound was approximately the size of a soft ball and went about as deep, though the clawed remains of his flesh hardly made Jack want to play any sort of game even as the comparison flitted through his mind. Wasting no more time jack filled the hole with ice, freezing shut the exposed muscle and veins to prevent any further…leakage.

As he concentrated he forced the ice to cloud and smooth over even as he made it, until it just looked like a particularly shiny part of Jacks truly icy colored skin. This was getting to be too much. Jack thought of the other various parts of him that a close inspection would reveal to be slightly more…shimmery than the rest of his frosty self. The ice keeping him patched up was actually weighing him down quite a lot. With all of it combined he probably had an extra twenty to thirty pounds on him from where Jack had frozen up everything from small scratches to broken bones, and now _chunks of flesh_ he thought bitterly.

The last year or so had been a doozy, and his time with the Guardians had only made things _worse._ Something Jack would have honestly thought impossible not even six months ago. Straightening himself up as the ice served to dull the pain to manageable levels, and would soon simply completely deaden the effected nerves, Jack knew he had to heal. Soon. The hole in his back would severely hinder his maneuverability and that was a death wish. Something that contrary to popular belief, Jack did not have.  

  But what with his unusual anatomy, healing was a lot more complicated. He’d first have to, for lack of a better term, _thaw._ And get his blood pumping again. Essentially bring his body back to the land of the living instead of mostly just hauling it around with magic like he has been.

It would be…unpleasant. To say the least. In his current state Jack really was little more than a corpse. He couldn’t completely heal under his own power either, he could only get things colder, so getting warm enough to melt the ice both inside and covering him and then to get close enough to a mortal human’s core body temperature to kick start his heart and metabolism would be quite impossible without going somewhere pretty damn _hot_. And while he definitely healed at an extremely accelerated rate he couldn’t completely ignore the laws of physics so he’d need to _eat_ to have the energy to mend his broken body. Jack hadn’t eaten in _decades._

On top of all that, even with his magically enhanced rate of healing it would still take at least a week to heal all the damage he’d let build up. A week in which he’d be essentially helpless, racked with horrible pain and because of his necessary heated state he would barely be able to frost a windowpane, let alone fight off anything gunning for him. It didn’t leave a lot of options. Anywhere he went in the world would essentially be a sure death sentence…except. Maybe. There really wasn’t any other choice. Jack would have to pay a visit to one of the Guardians.

Better to deal with the devil you know, thought Jack as he fell into the wind more than leaped.


	4. The Devil You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a ton of logical reasons Jack chose Bunny's place to help him heal. But it's really up in the air if any of them are the real reason he's there, and Bunny finally get's an inkling of just how deep he's getting in with the Guardian of Joy.

\----Jack----

Australia is really fucking hot. At least that’s Jack’s professional opinion of the place. He had to poor off more of his power just to keep the bits of ice about him from melting and leaving a crippled mess behind. Which would be fine if he wasn’t already exhausted from flying from some ass backwards forest in Russia to dead center of the Great Australian Fuck All, with some added miles of ocean in between for good measure.

Which left Jack pouring a lot of quickly dwindling winter energy into himself just to stay on ice. It just wouldn’t do to greet Bunny with a rotting corpse on his doorstep. And that’s where he was. Jack stared at the unassuming flower in the middle of what looked to be an otherwise empty desert that served as the unconventional door to Bunny’s domain. It would be only the second time Jack had seen the Warren, or would be if Bunny let him in.

A trickle of water down Jack’s back that he hoped could pass as sweat was all the prompting He needed to knock on the ground with his staff, to call the other Guardian to answer before Jack really did make a mess on his doorstep.

The other Guardians didn’t have to knock, Jack knew. North had his snow globes that granted him access to anywhere that wasn’t specifically warded against that sort of thing, Tooth had some sort of magic that let her pass through thresholds unnoticed to get her teeth, and the Sandman and Bunny were apparently old hat and he had a key.

Jack was struggling with some unbidden bitter emotion at his apparent lack of welcome, at least compared to the other Guardians, which was stupid because it’s not like Jack _wanted_ to get inside Bunny’s home, or something, when a tunnel opened and spewed out the giant rabbit himself. And he sure as hell didn’t squeak at the sudden appearance. After all, there was no _way_ he’d get caught unaware twice in one day.

But now Bunny was looking oddly at him, like a mix of confusion and finding out he’d gotten gum stuck between the pads of his feet. Jack pulled himself up straight to lay on the act he’d come up with for this, and with a silent hope he set in.

“Bunny!” Jack all but shouted, “Long time no see!”

The rabbit quirked an eyebrow at the frost sprite, obviously brushing off the attempt at humor, “It’s been two days Frostbite, wha’ da ya want?”

Well that was a surprise. In his weakened sate it must have taken Jack a lot longer to get here than he thought. Jack dropped the rest of the banter he’d had planned, figuring the less he talked the less he could rile up the rabbit.

“I, uh, need a favor.” He spoke with a shuffle of his feet as he leaned more heavily against his crook.

\----Aster----

Aster narrowed his eyes at Jack. What could the little drongo be planning this time around? But before he could say anything Jack pipped up again with a disarming wave his hands, “Nothing like that! I just need a place to, uh, sleep.”

Aster could feel his jaw drooping in surprise, but could do nothing to stop the obviously floored expression on his face. But at this point Jack seemed to be unable to stop now as he continued, “I mean it’s getting pretty hot in Burgess and I don’t usually _need_ to sleep during the summer” Aster didn’t know how to feel at the thought of either Jack sleeping for moths at a time or the implication that he should be but hasn’t been, “but kind of a lot’s gone down and I’m…tired.”

It was only then that Aster noticed that the usually uncontainable spirit wasn’t hopping from foot to foot or fidgeting like a caged animal when forced to remain in one place for more than five seconds, and instead of twirling around his staff like it was part of him, he was in fact leaning quite heavily on it.

It made sense after all. Aster was familiar with the cycles of elemental spirits, being the Avatar of Spring after all. If Jack really was tied to all that then it was more than a bit surprising that he was still upright talking to him instead of face-down knocked out wherever he usually hibernated till his season came ‘round again. But…

“Right, right, but why come to me with all that? Why try and shack up with an old codger like me when tha’ pole’d be a mite more comfortable with your…composition.” Those ice blue eyes seemed to search Aster’s face for something before they took on a more determined glint, and Aster wondered why he hadn’t outright turned Jack away. Seeming to sense his train of thought Jack seemed almost desperate in his explanation, “Normally I’d sleep in my lake, but after we trapped Pitch I found out his lair was only a couple miles from it. It’ll always be my lake, but I don’t think I can…rest. There. Anymore.”

Well strewth, that’s hardly a surprise. If he’d found out the grey bastard had holed up anywhere not half as warded as his Warren he’d never get a bit of rest either.

“And,” Jack said “the Workshop is a bit much. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great! But I’m pretty sure sleep is a foreign concept to most everyone there. Sandy’s out because I want to wake up again, thank you very much, and Tooth’s palace is hot. Really hot.” Jack ended with a grimace.

“Well I hate to break it to ya, but the Warren ain’t exactly cool ya know” Aster said with whatever was left in his will to refuse. He could feel his resolve crumbling under the almost pleading look Jack pinned him with.

At that Jack…flushed? The blue tinted frost coloring his cheeks looked alarmingly like cold version of a blush on any regular human and said, “You’re warm, not hot. It’s…nice?” Jack haltingly said.

And now it was Aster’s turn to blush. Jack meant the Warren, had to, but the sudden flurry of butterflies in his gut fervently wished otherwise. The thought of Jack, ah, warming up with the pooka had Aster flicking his long ears back and turning beet red.

“Alright ya larrikin, but no funny business, ya hear? My Warren’s the home of spring and I don’t need any frost to throw off the balance.” Threats, even weak ones, were good. They’d keep Aster on familiar ground and from scooping up the little brat and dragging him back to his burrow for some decidedly unrestful nights. But the smile Jack pulled out almost had him doing just that as they both hopped down into his tunnels. Walking back to the Warren proper he and Jack worked out the particulars of Jack’s stay, Aster not really thinking of what he was agreeing to anymore at the realization that Jack would be in HIS Warren, all cuddled up and asleep.

Aster realized as the unfamiliar warmth shot through his veins at the thought that he was right and properly screwed. After letting Jack in so deep to his most private of places he doubted he could refuse the bugger anything ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't seem to get the hang of dialogue, but it's like, the lifeblood of all the stories I have running through my head. So I should really get used to it.


	5. Digging Your Own Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is going great. Sort of. Maybe? Except Aster forgets Just how powerful he really is, and how dangerous a slip like that can be.

\----Jack----

The Warren was a hell of a lot bigger than Jack had given it credit before. He’d seen the moss covered crags seemingly used to direct the eggs to wherever they were supposed to go as they trekked out every Easter, but really it was a toss-up if the lines in the ground were there to direct or if they were there from simple erosion from the hundreds of years of millions of tiny feet stomping through. Jack had seen the rolling fields in the distance (and wow, there was an _out in the distance_ but like, completely underground) and areas with flowers and trees and other plants that looked like a strange miss match of tropical and garden variety and utterly _impossible_. There was probably so much _more_ that Jack couldn’t even see, could spend an entire lifetime finding more and more.

But Jack was tired. And melting. Really, he was barely holding it together as it was. And Bunny was being weird. A few minutes of walking down the tunnels he’d almost shut down. His face and posture had closed off, but he also just kind of agreed to give Jack everything he asked for, for his stay. Way to send mixed signals. So even though he was bursting with curiosity, most of what Jack felt was coiling nervousness like black tendrils gripping his guts.

People weren’t this nice. _Bunny_ wasn’t this nice. I mean, after Jack had figured out the giant rabbit had clocked out he eventually stopped trying to sugar coat what he’d really need for his stay. Stuff like a room he could freeze, which had Bunny barely twitching as he slightly changed course, a lot of preserved foods, but like...a lot, a fully functioning bathroom, which wouldn’t be weird except spirits almost never had a need for that sort of thing beyond recreational things and habits so might have been a bit beyond the pale to just ask for, and total privacy. For well over a month. All of which seemed pretty unreasonable for a first time guest. But Bunny took it in stride and didn’t even bat an eye or glance at him, let alone question him why he needed any of that. Jack was tempted to start asking for more ridiculous things than what he already had, just to see how much this weird funk Bunny was in could get him.

But he already had the promise of everything he needed and Jack just couldn’t bring himself to risk getting kicked out for asking for too much when Bunny eventually got back to his body. After all, he didn’t really need a big basket of edible arrangements, no matter how entertaining the thought of a conked out Bunny progressively getting frustrated as he meticulously cut fruit to look like the flowers of other plants just to please Jack was.

For a second Jack kept walking past the rock wall they’d begun to meander alongside of, because over their walk they’d passed seemingly every conceivable type of landscape seamlessly and nothing really stood out about the large rocky wall after they’d passed through so much. But Bunny had stopped a bit behind Jack facing the wall, and Jack pointedly didn’t think about how easily he’d shown his back to the other Guardian.

Jack hadn’t actually said anything in a while and Bunny seemed to have taken that as permission to become even more vacant then he’d been thorough out the rest of the exchange. Jack watched as Bunny’s gaze seemed to focus for a second as he held up a hand to the rock wall. Jack finally felt the fear he’d been missing when dealing with the rabbit for a split second as faster than Jack could breathe Bunny drew in an impossible amount of energy and then shot it into the stone.

The world shook.

\----Aster----

Aster wasn’t used to guests. In fact, since Jack had first been revealed to the Guardians he’d had more interactions with others then he’d had in the last century combined. Maybe even the one before that too. And his _Warren._ Sure, the other guardians had all seen it at some point. One or two at a time. Briefly. With express supervision by either him or one of his sentinels if he absolutely had to check on something and couldn’t get them to _leave._

But then there’s Jack. Jack, who paraded in with pretty much everyone he interacted with these days, plus one additional _human child_ and dozens of yeti. Who helped set up a respectable ( _fantastic_ ) Easter in less than an eighth of the time such an endeavor would have taken alone, and kept him from having a complete meltdown _and_ kept the kid happy thorough the whole ordeal.   

Jack, who without even Aster realizing it had somehow gotten the ability to hurt him more deeply then he thought was possible anymore. Jack, with the same hand he used to take, he used to give **hope** when Aster, for the first time in millennia, had none.

And now he was going to sleep in Aster’s warren. Was planning on staying there longer than anyone other than Aster himself had ever before, even if it was going to be mostly spent unconscious.

So working on auto pilot Aster wandered over to a section of the Warren currently in disuse and was far enough away from the more delicate plants he kept on hand that any ambient winter magic wouldn’t be able to cause any harm.

If Aster were thinking clearly, he would have made making the room for Jack a manual process. It really would have only taken a few extra minutes to manually dig out the space (Aster was easily the best digger that had ever existed on earth) and have his egg workers drag in the furniture and food for Jack. But as it was he just flexed his magic a bit, in a way he could only ever have done in his Warren, and did all of it in approximately two point three seconds. But that was enough.

Aster finally noticed Jack gasping for breath and trembling, clutching onto his staff because it looked like it was the only thing keeping him upright. A spike of worry wedged itself in his chest as he realized the weight of the energy he’d just poured over Jack could have crippled a lesser spirit, and Jack had already been in pretty bad shape.

He took a step toward Jack, apology on his lips and worry etched into his features, but Jack staggered back, eyes wide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a side note, I dunno if I can really fit a real explanation of what happened here in the story, so I'll slip it in here: Aster is old. Hella old. And he's been constantly imbuing his magic into his warren for literal millennia. it's basically just a part of him now, and the magic is still his, even though it's built up to truly astronomical levels at this point, so he can pretty much do or shape his warren in any way near instantaneously when he wants to. But worst case scenario too much ambient foreign magic can be something like radiation poisoning mixed with heat stroke to unprepared and weak spirits, and Aster threw around some major weight with his little stunt of moving literal tons of solid rock and transporting furniture and food and piping in seconds. The kind of weight that would have killed Jack if he were really just a frost sprite. 
> 
> As it stands, as far as magic power goes Jack normally outclasses the other Guardians by a pretty significant margin, but with the build up at the warren since the earth was borne to now, Aster is way beyond the pale, but only when he's in the Warren. So Jack's fine (barely, and majorly weakened even compared to before) but with everything Aster knows about him, he really shouldn't be.


	6. Absolutely Not Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster really hates the smell of blood, and Jack is definitely not getting what he asked for. Then again, no one really asks for panic attacks and fainting.

\----Aster----

                _Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, **STUPID!**_ Was all Aster could think as he watched Jack reeling back from him like he’d just tried to hold him at gun point. Well, he sort of, unintentionally, had. But still. The last thing Aster wanted was a hurt Jack. Taking a step closer, apology already on his lips, Aster could only watch as Jack backed himself into the stone behind him. Jack’s eyes only got wider as he realized he was cornered. For a moment Aster was glad Jack wasn’t screaming or hyperventilating, which were normally good signs of _not dying._ Until he realized Jack _wasn’t breathing._ At all.

 

                Aster surged forward, but at the sight Jacks eyes shook and finally rolled back as the last of the fight left his body. Aster was already there before Jack could even slump, and held Jacks shoulders as he brought both of them to the ground.

 

                Dissipating the remaining energy around them was as effortless as exhaling a deep breath, but the worst of the damage was already done, he knew. As the bringer of life, the Guardian of Hope, and the Avatar of Spring and all its growth, there really wasn’t much Aster couldn’t heal, in a pinch. So as bad as he already felt Aster didn’t start to panic until he realized Jack’s heart wasn’t beating. _Jack’s_ _heart wasn’t beating._

                No.  Aster would not lose Jack too. Not when he’d just gotten him. Not when he hadn’t even begun to hope that there could _be_ a him and Jack.

 

                So for the second time in as many minutes, Aster gathered his energy and _pushed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait, and the extreme shortness of this chapter. It was just so super dramatic that I wanted to give it it's own punctuation. It would feel weird to me to lump it in with the next chapter (rest of this chapter?) because while it's still dramatic, it's not so....deathly. 
> 
> So take this bit as a tease to the rest of the chapter, which is turning out to be the longest one yet. But I'm still tinkering with it, so it might be a bit before I'll put it up.


	7. In the Light of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack really isn't used to waking up...warm?

\----Jack----

There was warmth and the feeling of sunlight on skin, and as Jack opened his eyes he was momentarily dazzled by the way the light filtered through the grass he lied upon. Awareness came in slow waves as he ran grass through outstretched fingers, softer than anything he’d felt in decades. Stretching out on his back, languidly arching his back to reach just above the tickling embrace of the makeshift bed Jack found himself on this time. It’d been too long since he’d last slept. Jack’s eyes widened.

 _It had been too long since he’d last_ slept.

Suddenly Jack wasn’t nearly as comfortable as he leapt to his feet. Taking in his surroundings as quickly as he could Jack saw only open field. Panicked, Jack twisted around desperately searching for his staff. _There._ On the ground, next to where he’d initially woken up. Crouching, staff now in hand, Jack realized a few more things. He was naked. Well, mostly. There was a tight pair white shorts clinging to him, only going slightly down his upper thighs.

Jack’s pulse quickened as he saw the pink flush to his skin and _oh god his heartbeat._ Faintly it occurred to him that there was no pain as he whipped around again, trying as best he could to minimize his blind-spots in such an open field.

This wasn’t good at _all._ An alive Jack was a very quickly dead Jack, and probably on a more permanent basis. Focusing on his staff Jack felt for the tremor of his magic. Where frost usually nearly engulfed the wood in his hands, only the barest tendrils stemmed from where his hands made direct contact with it. The burn in his lungs reminded Jack none too gently that breathing was something he still had to do at the moment. Focus.  He needed to focus.

Taking a calming breath Jack began immersing himself in his magic, into cold and stillness. Where his hands clutched the staff his fingers blackened with frostbite in the warmth of spring around him. Steadily flowing up his arms the black faded to a gray pallor and then quickly changed to his normal snow white. Dying again always hurt until the nerves simply stopped working, but Jack couldn’t help but softly cry out as the killing cold reached into his chest and began encroaching on his heart.

With the last stuttering beats his heart gave a strange keening sound filled the air and it took Jack a second to realize it wasn’t coming from him. It was an alarm. The light around him, that apparently wasn’t actually sunlight despite how it seemed moments ago, dimmed and then there was a flashing red light hovering a few feet above Jack’s head, marking his presence to anyone caring to look.

Jumping back, trying to dart out from beneath it Jack panicked even more as it simply moved to follow his exact movements. Forcing the cold through the rest of his body as fast as he possibly could despite the momentary increase of pain, Jack finally could feel the full scope of his power. If anything the alarm only seemed to get louder with this, but Jack was already running.

He was lighter than a feather as the base of his feet barely touched the tips of the grass, and he still propelled himself further, quickly gaining speed. He couldn’t do anything about the light following him, but Jack prepared himself as best he could. Unthinkingly he added a vicious spike of ice to the base of his staff, and then the all too familiar hoarfrost to blade out all along the edges of his crook.

Jack didn’t make it much farther before he felt a thumping in the ground and ahead of him a hole opened up in the earth, and a destressed looking Easter Bunny popped out. And, oh.

_Oh shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the formatting of having two scenes technically happening at the same time is kind of weird so I'm further splitting up the chapters so there's no confusion. But really, at this point there's going to be a ridiculous amount of chapters and very little actual content if I keep the nonsense up.


	8. Mad Sounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Aster waits for Jack to wake up, he does some manual labor to keep his mind...occupied.

\----Aster----

It had been a long while since Aster had found himself in the deeper reaches of his warren, closer to the area where he first officially met Katherine and the man now known as Santa Clause, deep beneath Easter Island, than the egg fields under Australia he’d been staying in the last few centuries. The area had fallen under slight disrepair. The once golden cogs imbedded in the rich earth now leaned closer to a rusted copper tint, and they had a maddening squeak to them that Aster was currently trying to rectify. It was a task he’d intentionally put off, mostly because of its utter tedium. But at the moment even tedium was better than the alternative of watching over an unconscious Jack Frost.

It had been days. _Days._ And Jack still hadn’t woken up.

Which, really, would hardly be a problem if what the bloody drongo had told him to get in the warren had held even a bit of truth to it. But _no._ Instead of letting _anyone_ know how injured he was Jack had tried for a _bloody fucking sleepover._ Like he wasn’t falling apart on his feet. Struth, the kinds of injuries Jack’s body had been littered with should have been utterly debilitating to anyone. _Individually._

How does one even walk when the entire left side of their body’s skeletal structure is covered in hairline fractures and two severe breaks?  Jack was more broken than whole when the first bits of his magic began knitting together his hurts. And that was just his bones! Numerous cuts, gashes, slashes and bloody _chunks_ were missing from Jack’s hide! How could so much damage have been done in such a short period of time? Aster had seen jack a few measly _days_ ago and he’d been fit as he’d ever been before! Really the most surprising thing about it all was that he hadn’t smelt the blood all over jack, from all the open wounds. After all, a Pooka’s nose was only second to their ears, and a Pooka’s hearing was renowned across the galaxy!

Hunching over a large gear in the side of an oval platform, pulling an oil slick rag out of the bandolier across his chest Aster began polishing where the gear and it’s support met as Aster resolutely did not think about the pain Jack must have been in. As he worked, moving from gear to gear the background noise of high pitched squeaks and wails of metal grinding against metal began to fade to almost silence. For a moment Aster stood to his full height to find the last of that awful keening noise, but saw only smoothly turning amongst all the gears.

Then Aster felt a tug at the base of his chest and a second after an alarm began to sound.  Jack, who’d he’d left in absolute _perfect health,_ was flat-lining.

Aster immediately bolted, dropping the rag to fall where it may in the now suspiciously quiet room, the only sound was of heavy footsteps racing to Jack Frost.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly surprised how many of you out there are reading this! And everyone who's commented has been really positive too. So thanks.


	9. Cooling off or Just Warming Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bunny finds Jack.

\----Jack----

                It took a moment for Jack to really figure out what was going on, the only real explanation to the incredibly improbable situation he found himself in. There was the Easter Bunny, looking a tad worse for wear, popping out of a hole in his….Warren. Jack was still in the Warren. Jack was still in the Warren and _he didn’t hurt._ There were no dulled-by-the-cold aches or pains. Now that he wasn’t panicking _(why wasn’t he panicking?)_ Jack found that he felt better than he had in well over a century.

Bunny had healed Jack.

Bunny was also staring at Jack open mouthed like he’d grown a second head. It was around then that Jack realized that he was still poised to attack, and while he wasn’t exactly sure this conversation wasn’t going to end in tears, it probably wouldn’t end in blood. Bunny wasn’t that cruel, none of the Guardians were. Just as Jack began lowering his crook is about the time Bunny began sputtering and walking towards Jack, “Jack! Are ye all right!? What happened?” Bunny’s questions were punctuated with dramatic flailing of his long furry arms. He quickly closed the space between them and firmly grasped Jack by his shoulders. And Jack was suddenly very aware of his lack of clothing at the soft feeling of Bunny’s fur on Jack’s bare skin.

Bunny paid no mind to the sudden frost on Jack’s cheeks as he manhandled him around, seemingly to check for any unseen injuries. Seemingly satisfied Jack wasn’t in Dire Peril he stepped back with a scowl and snapped his fingers. Which really didn’t make any sense because, you know, _fur._ But-

“There must be something wrong with the monitors.” Oh, well look at that. The alarm was off again, lights back to normal and everything. “Ye look fit as a fiddle now, but the blasted things were screaming yer heart had stopped again.” Which, what? But Bunny was talking again, “Which I suppose shouldn’t be too odd, considering it’s been a few millennium since I had these things hooked up to anybody and I had to recalibrate everything to fit _human_ composition.”

And really there was so much off hand information there that Jack was kind of struggling with the implications, because really? Millennium? But Bunny apparently wasn’t quite finished with the, uh, monitors, because he knelt on the ground and put the flat of his palm against the ground. Jack felt the tingle of magic being moved around beneath his feet, not nearly as heavy as before, but more complex than almost anything he’d ever felt before.

Not really sure if he should say something or continue running Jack shifted on his feet and kept a close watch on Bunny. After another second Bunny’s forehead started to get his ‘confused’ wrinkles and after another they had reached all the way between his ears. Slowly, the Easter Bunny lifted his head to stare directly at Jack.

Jack knew he should have just kept running. As he met Bunny’s gaze Jack felt his chest tighten, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that if his heart were in any condition to be beating at all then it would have Just skipped a few. Frozen in place, Jack watched as Bunny got back on his feet, his eyes never wavering from Jack’s, and Bunny stepped up close once again. The tightness in Jack’s chest constricted him even more, and Jack realized he wasn’t breathing. Not that he strictly needed to but-

Jack’s panicked thoughts stuttered to a halt at the feeling of soft fingers lightly pressing against his neck. Jack could only clench down harder, feeling all of his muscles flex as he tried to force his body to jump back from the warm touch, when he realized Bunny was trying to take his _pulse._ Jack couldn’t bring himself to look away from Bunny’s impossibly green eyes as he looked for something that was no longer there. Bunny’ face shifted through so many different emotions Jack couldn’t even begin to pick them apart, but the softness in his voice was impossible to miss as Bunny whispered, “Jack?”

Bunny was all warmth and concern and so, _so_ much more that Jack began to feel the tips of his fingers begin to thaw. But Jack was cold. Jack had to be cold to keep away the pain. So Jack did what he’d been doing for over three hundred years. Jack ran.


	10. Aster gets the Worst Headaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster has finally figured out something is wrong and decides to do something about it. Now if he could stop getting knocked in the head maybe he'd get somewhere with that.

\----Aster----

Blinking open his eyes before groaning and rolling onto his side, only to curl into himself as the throbbing pain between his flicked back ears Aster took stock of his situation. Clearly he was in pain, but also still in the warren? But there was nothing _in_ the warren that could have possi- **_Jack._**

                A flash of Jack, looking for all the world ready to take on an army even only in some borrowed smallclothes, ghosting across the warren’s unnaturally green fields faster than should have been possible like someone had lit his staff in fire. More came flooding back with faulty-not-faulty machines and the smooth coolness of Jacks pale skin. Where he felt only stillness. In that single moment with the constant feeling of the Earth spinning beneath his pads and the thrum of life around him Jack was stillness and silence incarnate, so far away from the constantly shifting loudmouthed picture of life that Jack normally displayed and for all the life Aster was constantly aware of he felt absolutely _nothing_ from Jack.

                Then of course there was the sharp pain of a distinctly shaped wooden crook being slammed into the side of his head. Aster Growled.

                A quick preliminary check determined that Jack was most definitely not in the warren anymore, and stretching his awareness just a bit further Aster confirmed that jack wasn’t even on the same _continent_ anymore. Frankly Aster wasn’t even sure exactly how long he’d been out- Jack could be anywhere by now.

                _Well_ Aster thought, _you won’ be getting away that easy, mate_ as he sat down cross-legged right there in the dirt.

                It wasn’t something he did often, but Aster could find absolutely anyone touching the earth if he was familiar enough with their energy. And well, it may not have been terribly long since Aster had known the bugger but he’d become as familiar with Jack’s energy as his own. Which Aster was definitely not thinking about. No not at all. Ahem.

                Pulling taut his connection to the earth Aster ignored the thrum of every living thing pressing down on him and filtering though the steady hum of life and letting go of the energy sense of the irrelevant, leaving only three tethers, the home-energy of the Guardians. All at once they were so similar to the pull of the other Pooken Brothers and yet they were now so few. Bright like beacons in the ocean instead of the endless shining of all the stars in the sky. Pushing the ancient grief aside, not easily but with infinite practice, Aster let go of the peppermint chill of Nicolaus’ and the feathers and ash of Tooth’s energy, the two other grounded Guardians, to focus on Jack’s unbridled Joy. Sandy almost never touched ground, existing in some trance like state that comes with being of two realms of existence and the never ending work of giving mortal minds a glimpse of the dream lands.

                Following Jack’s pull Aster found him in Albuquerque, for whatever reason, meandering along almost carelessly, and just like that Aster was _furious._

                Jack had left him laid out on the ground after _saving his bloody life_ and gone for a _walk?_ He wasn’t even hiding! Crouching, claws in the ground, Aster launched himself towards his tunnels, ready to tear into Jack’s hide until the ungrateful bastard was back in the state Aster had first found him in and then hang him up in Nick’s shop for the elves!

                Bounding through the tunnels was effortless, and getting from the heart of Australia to Albuquerque took almost no time at all. Opening up a tunnel directly in front of Jack, angry words on the tip of his tongue, Aster jumped up and with a resounding **_thunk_** was sent right back down.

                Just before pain and unconsciousness claimed him again Aster heard a whispered “ _oh fucking hell”_ from Jack and then there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy hell everybody I'm sorry. I really did not mean to just stop writing like that but I got a job and like anything else done for money it eats away at my creative freedom. But I couldn't NOT write something for Easter. So I hunkered down and popped out another chapter. In the future, to avoid this entire situation I'm not going to post anything until it's finished.


	11. One Step Forward Two Steps Back  (clap clap)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack finally gets a moment to stop and think. And also apparently hospitalize lagomorphs.

\---Jack---

 

In hindsight, Jack decided, that knocking Bunny unconscious was probably overkill. Maybe not by much, because even as free thinking the giant rabbit could be it was still pretty unlikely that he'd have let Jack go without much of a fuss. The whole situation probably would have gone better if Jack had kept his head instead of panicking, and making it a joke (maybe one in pore taste, but still). Then again who knows how many would have reacted to a wink, a firmly stated "Not dead!" and finishing it off with jazz hands.

 

It was a warm night in Albuquerque. Which isn't surprising considering how close it is to the equator and the time of year on top of that. It seems like a place where people go to disappear. He'd usually run off to Antarctica but after the last time with the whole shebang with Pitch it seemed even less welcoming than the barren _frozen wasteland_ it already was. So Albuquerque. Specifically the rooftops of a meagre downtown area, flitting from one rooftop to the next with little skips that by all rights should have only carried him a foot at most, but sent Jack flying.

 

This whole situation was so far out of Jack's comfort zone that he had no idea how to manage. People don't, didn't, talk to him! Let alone actually look after his wellbeing. Which was another thing! Jack felt  _good._  Better than he had in decades. And what? His first response is to fucking attack the guy who finally decided to do more than just attack him on sight? 

 

Guilt and anger ate away at his insides, feeling more like black claws gouging into his stomach than simple emotions. If Bunny hadn't already hated him Jack was sure he would by now.

 

Too upset to keep concentrated enough to balance on the edges of buildings Jack stepped off the side of the red bricked office he'd been on to wander the streets. Down here the buildings seemed to loom, too large for the shacks he was now used to from his new/old memories, with too many windows for people to look out and  _not_ see. Fulled by his discomfort, Jack's paranoia forced him into a brisk walk, hunched over his staff clutched too tight in his hands Jack picked a direction and hoped it led out of town.

 

Taking longer strides, Jack fleetingly wished he weighed more so he could properly stomp without being propelled in the air like a too excited Chihuahua. Though gaining an extra fifty pounds through iced-over injuries was something he'd rather not repeat. Again. Jack walked a little faster.

 

Bunny hadn't deserved any of that. Jack already had enough pain on his conscience and adding more to one of the people he'd tried so hard to save? Unacceptable. That and Bunny was already at least partially clued in on his physical state. So, after much deliberation  (and maybe a few unseasonably iced street corners) Jack decided to come out of the coffin. 

 

Maybe if he played it right Bunny would feel so creeped out that he'll decide to stop asking questions and leave him alone! Swallowing back the wave of dread rising in his throat Jack got ready to take back off to Australia. 

 

"OI YO-" * _Wack* *thud*_

 

_"Fucking hell"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels like I just keep apologizing for incredibly slow updates, and considering I have another story idea that I want to write I should really get a move on. If nothing else I'll finish this before I start on another project, although that might be a while coming out because I've decided to avoid this exact situation I'm going to hold off until posting until I have everything done!


	12. So Close, So Close...Damn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster wakes up. You know, again.

\----Aster----

Waking up with a headache was something Aster had never thought he’d make a habit out of, but then again if someone had told him a few hundred years ago that he’d pretend to be a giant rabbit for kids Aster would have had a good laugh and jobbed whoever even implied that well and good. So maybe this would just be something else to get used to, with a continued association with one Jack Frost.  _Jack._

                Sitting bolt upright Aster winced and clutched at his head. This was getting ridiculous.  Opening one eye to look where he’d ended up this time around, Aster was surprised to find that he was in a proper med bay. Not just any med bay either, but North’s. How had he gotten here? From the last rodeo Aster would have assumed that he’d have woken up in his tunnels, right under Albuquerque, not in the _North Pole_.

Ignoring the incessant beeping he flung his legs over the side of the cot he’d been deposited in and stood. It’d take a hell of a lot more than a headache to keep Aster down for the count.

A disgruntled looking yeti, though really they all kind of looked like that, came bustling into the room, it’s eyes already trained on where he’d been laid out just moments ago.  Before the harried thing could get out more than a token protest of “Blaraggh!” with plenty of upset arm gesturing towards the bed Aster had already begun waving off any further protest and he deftly avoided the grasping arms intent on keeping him locked up as he skirted around the yeti and out the door. It was unlikely that anyone would chase him further if he made it out of the immediate range of the sick bay.

Long strides and a determined scowl got him through the offshoot leading to the medical wing and into the workshop proper. The clash of colors and the cacophonous atmosphere doing nothing to ease his aching head. Aster longingly thought of the quiet of his Warren before making his way toward North’s personal workshop, stepping over manic elves and around overburdened yeti. It wasn’t exactly pleasant but the way was made thankfully quick from familiarity.

The halls here were (comparatively) quiet so it wasn’t exactly hard to hear North’s booming voice pitched in a way that he usually only resorted to when dealing with skittish rain deer, “Jack please! Bunny is old friend, and strong! If something is attacking other Guardians we must act quickly!”

Aster’s ears folded back, North clearly didn’t know a lick of what happened. Aster quickened his pace, ready to throw in his own bizzo into the mix but before he could announce his presence Jack’s voice rang out, completely devoid of any emotion, and said “It won’t happen again.” with such finality that it made Aster’s steps falter. He’d never heard Jack so, so…cold.

North, apparently also brought short merely sputtered a “Well, ah, good” into the suddenly charged atmosphere.

“Tell Bunny when he wakes up to come find me by my lake in Burgess,” said Jack just before the sound of North’s windows being flung open. Aster whipped around the last corner but only saw North reaching towards the open window and snow slowly falling in from Jack’s swift departure. Without conscious thought Aster opened up a tunnel and dropped down before North could clue in to his presence.

Instead of bounding away at his usual pace Aster found himself dragging his feet, suddenly a lot less sure he wanted to hear the answers he knew he had to demand of the newest Guardian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I'm pretty spectacularly bad at updating, but these are my lovely idiot sons and I'm finishing this even if it kills me.
> 
> Also? Why am I so unable to actually move along the plot? I already know what's going to happen, writing it down shouldn't be so hard :(.


	13. Undead Emo-teens, Jesus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst and introspection and a really unfortunate non-sequitur to an argument Jack probably doesn't realize is happening.

\----Jack----

 Unable to keep still Jack slid across the ice of His Lake in long sweeps made graceful by both his affinity for ice and long practice. In better moods he’d often copy or improve upon some of what he’d seen of mortal figure skaters, a task made almost easy by his disregard for gravity and his immunity to the cold.

 

Today he just circled, with the odd figure eight to switch up the pace when he noticed there was one. Jack could never hate winter. Everything he loved was tied to closely with the season for that; echoing laughter over pure white snow, the cold to jolt you awake and to feel alive, and to curl up for warmth more appreciated because of its absence. The best things in life he’d found in winter. But Jack also knew just how right Pitch had been when he’d crooned about cold and darkness.

 

Glimmering light reflected into rainbows off freshly fallen snow hid all too easily the coiling darkness just underneath. Warmth stealing storms, the beautiful stillness of a winter forest uninterrupted by the jagged breaths of long forgotten hikers made winter as unforgiving and beautiful as a diamond. Jack, who had danced on the knife’s edge for his entire existence (and fallen on the wrong side of it), felt only the thrill of it. Clinging to life so easily lost only made Jack hold tighter. If he’d been left entirely alone, he quietly admitted to himself, he’d have given up completely. Faded out of existence the same way so many of the older spirits have. Smirking at the irony of admitting that being under constant danger is probably what saved his life, Jack felt a spot of thaw appear in his unnatural winter wonderland. Bunny was here.

 

\----Aster----

Taking a deep breath Aster opened his tunnels around Jack’s pond, having only been there once it wasn’t exact and he found that he was actually closer to where the Guardians had sealed Pitch away this time around. Maybe it was for the best that Jack was predominantly nomadic because anybody with a lick of sense would be starkers from the nightmare magic lingering from Pitch’s taint.

 

Turning away from the lingering splinters of a forgotten bedframe Aster looked toward where Jack’s pond should be. And saw winter. An impossibly localized snow storm hid anything but the vague outline of trees. Even now watching the snow fall Aster only felt the slight October chill natural to this time of year. Looking further Aster saw that there was no clouds. Only the abrupt turn to winter within a set barrier. This… to pull something like this off Jack had to be far more powerful than any of the other guardians gave him credit.

 

Suddenly feeling lucky he’d only gotten off with a head ache or two the last time Frostbite decided to give him a whack Aster pushed down his reservations, feeling them curl in his gut like hissing snakes, and stepped forward into Jack’s domain.

 

Aster had halfway expected some kind of resistance when he got to the edge of the cold, but the only sensation was the _drastic_ shift in temperature. Surprisingly, as soon as Aster stepped through the storm quieted. The snowfall didn’t stop but now it looked idyllic, gentler than he’d usually give credit to a true winter. Still cold though. If anything as he continued forward the temperature only dropped. Shivering Aster felt his body begin to grow more and denser fur. Usually he’d stop it, the only time he was ever really cold was when he’d stop by North’s place and really he was never outside long enough for the shift to be necessary. But, well. Aster had no idea what this talk was going to be about, let alone how long it’d take, so he let his body adapt naturally to the new climate.

 

By the time Aster made it to the tree line the snow had all but stopped, but the last time Aster had been somewhere this cold it had been during the last ice age. The only real movement here was Jack gliding back and forth across the pond he’d claimed. His back was turned but Aster knew that Jack felt it the second he’d stepped across the barrier.

 

Emotions Aster either didn’t fully understand or refused to acknowledge rose up like bile to the back of his throat as he watched Jack circle around the ice to face towards him, still and graceful in a way that Aster had never seen from Jack before. Momentum draining Jack came to a complete stop, crook balanced across his shoulders and his arms draped across it, Jack stared.

 

“I died here, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY BRO depression (or something) really sucks and breaking an old lady's leg in two places are my excuses for the ridiculous wait. 
> 
> Peace out girl scouts


	14. It's okay, Jack's really used to one-sided Conversations

\----Aster----

Panic left Aster silent, the moment after Jack’s reveal stretching out into an awful eternity but at least he hadn’t vocalized the screech inside his head. Far from looking uncomfortable, Jack mostly looked like a statue- cold and motionless Jack looked as dead as he claimed to be for all the emotion he shows now. But before Aster could wrangle his thoughts into any semblance of words Jack continued, “It was the very beginning of spring,” and wasn’t that a punch to the gut? “I’d always loved winter, even while I was..alive.” Aster wasn’t so sure his keening was silent at that.

 

“It was going to be a last hurrah, spring always came with more work back then,” the smile Jack made held even less warmth than the frozen air around the lake as he gave a little twirl on the ice, “I’d even brought my little sister along. We were going to have so much _fun._ One last skate in the ice before it really got warm and the ice got too thin. _”_ Jack's smile gave an ugly twist, now only a poor facsimile of the expression.

 

 “It all happened so fast, but then it usually does doesn’t it? The ice cracked” For the first time since he’d gotten to Jack, his face morphed into a true emotion, though Aster couldn’t tell if it was wonder or pain and when he continued his words were barely a whisper, “I saved her. I _saved_ her. And then I drowned.”

 

Aster couldn’t stop the horror filled whimper of “ _Jack”_ any more than he could have stopped his eyes glassing over in sympathy. Aster’s hand itched to stretch out, grab Jack to reassure himself that the winter spirit was still _here,_ that Aster hadn’t already lost him too before they could properly meet.  But Jack continued on like he hadn’t heard, “It was the first thing I remembered when I got my memories back. And then nothing. I couldn’t watch over her. Them. My family, they must have grieved. But I never saw them again. I didn’t even know that I should have _looked,”_ and if Aster knew anything at all it was grief made fresh, forgotten and remembered in cycles, made no less painful for the time passed. He wanted to pull Jack close, hide him away in his Warren until that pained cast left Jacks bearing, with his slumped shoulders, arms slack but with his fists clenched too tight. Jack was a mirror of Aster’s own grief. But that wasn’t his place, not now and maybe not ever.

 

Aster would have given anything, _anything,_ he could give to erase the feeling that came from waking up one day knowing that everyone you knew and loved was dead and gone from Jack. When Aster composed himself, his emotions too new and far too raw for him to easily let pass, he saw Jack glaring with all the contempt in the world at the Moon. Sometime during all of this Jack must have dispelled his storm, though it was still cold Aster couldn’t blame that for the quake in his hands. Aster clenched his jaw, Jacks apparent disdain for Manny suddenly made glaringly obvious. But wasn’t he just as guilty? Weren’t all of them? With all that he knew of Jack’s past their brief fumbling interactions before the blizzard of ’68 taking on a new light. The first startled greetings now reeking of desperation, and the blizzard itself an unheard cry for help.

 

Bile rose to the back of his throat at the memories, but Jack was looking at him now, a ghost of a true smile on his lips when he spoke up again, “It’s been a while since I’ve needed a heartbeat, Cotton Tail.” Aster wanted to protest-he could still remember the feel of Jack’s renewed pulse under his hands, of Jack breathing warm and alive and healed under him, but he couldn’t push out words past the painful knot of regret in his throat.  

 

Nodding, taking Aster’s silence as some sort of answer to a question never asked, Jack drew into himself and stepped into the air. “Sorry about your head, Bun Bun” he said hoarsely, but once again Aster couldn’t read his face.

 

Aster stepped forward, to grab onto him, to say something ( _anything_ ) but Jack was already out of reach, and only speeding up. “Aster!” he called out. Jack was too far away to properly see him but he’d stopped moving, “Me name's Aster!” he continued to yell, and if it weren’t for his Pookan hearing there’d be no way he’d have heard Jack’s, “See you later, Aster.” As he turned away and quickly disappeared from sight. He wanted to run, to catch up to Jack and hold him close, keep him from always running away, but Aster couldn’t move.

 

As the air warmed back to its proper temperature Aster stared after Jack, feeling too full of emotion to process. He needed a drink and a friendly ear. Tapping his foot, Aster made a tunnel heading straight to Punjam Hy Loo. Tooth was better at keeping her gob shut than the other Guardians and whatever North said her hooch was quite a bit more potent than his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God this is so late. It's been well over a year since I've started this and This is all I've got? I guess there's a reason I'm not an author.

**Author's Note:**

> So, hey everybody! Uhhh...I've never really tried creative writing before, so any constructive criticism is welcome. Though really, any comments are welcome.


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